For this photoshoot I am using an archive image of my mum’s mum (Sarah). I then plan to recreate this image with my 2 uncles (her sons), just like I have done with my mum. I am doing this, so that I can present similar physical features between them all, so that I can really stress how everyone in a family union are linked together through blood and DNA and how that bond can never be broken.

Archive I am referring to:

To present these similar characteristics I am going to create a collage of the images I take similarly to the image below:

In order to do this I am going to use Lightroom to edit my photographs and then use photoshop to combine them all together like so. I am going to use facial features from my two uncles, my mum and their mum to create a face.

This will help me present their similar facial features. The collage also metaphors the union of the family, as all the pieces of my photographs are unified together, just how family is.

Final Images

For this photo I had my sister wear her new secondary school uniform, but I also had her wear the old primary uniform as well.

For this photograph, I had my sister wear her Summer uniform, which is similar to the primary uniform I am wearing in the archive. I also had her wear my old primary school uniform, which has signatures on from everyone I went to primary with.

Analysis of 2 Images

The lighting used in my image is artificial lighting. This photograph has high levels of control, because it is a staged image, where I have manipulated the position of my dad, as well as myself with the camera.

F-stop= f/10

Exposure time= 1/15 sec

ISO speed= ISO-3200

The colours in this image include more neutral tones, such as black, white, grey and beige. The colour of the couch is different to my archive photo, due to us having a new couch 18 years later. The teddy my dad is holding is also a different teddy, due to us no longer owning the original teddy and the colour top my dad is wearing is also a different colour, which I would correct if I were to do this again.

This image has lots of light and dark tones, due to all the white and black in the images. This creates contrast. There is also a lot of shapes and patterns in this image, due to the patterned pillows and blanket, which is on our couch.

The composition of this image is extremely similar to the original archive, as this was what I was aiming to achieve. The main viewpoint of this image is my dad holding a teddy and he is in the centre of the frame.

This photograph presents my father 18 years after the original archive was taken and presents how he has grown and changed since the archive was taken. It also represents things that are still similar about him from when he was younger. He was 26 years old in the first archive and he is now 44 years old today. This image also presents how our home is different, as we now have a new couch as the background.

The reason I have chose to recreate this archive of my dad is because I am exploring my family through archives and my own photographs, so that I can explore the union that is my family. I am exploring archives, so that I can present how our family union has changed and grown and how we are all linked together through blood and DNA. I have chosen to use archives from years ago, so that I can present how even though the individuals have grown and changed the family union stays strong and unbroken.

The lighting used in my image is artificial lighting. This photograph has high levels of control, because it is a staged image, where I have manipulated the position of my dad, the prop used and the distance and position of myself with the camera.

F-stop= f/10

Exposure time= 1/15 sec

ISO speed= ISO-3200

The colours in my photograph include blue, red, grey, black and white. Due to all the dark and light tones of the blacks, whites and greys this image has high contrast, especially against the brighter colours of the blue dressing gown. Due to the pillows and blankets draped on the couch there is lots of patterns and shapes in this image.

The composition of this image is very similar to the composition of the archive image, because this is what I was trying to achieve. The colour of the couch is the same and the blanket on the couch is even thrown over the back of the couch in the same way. My dad is also sat very similarly with a beer in his left hand resting on his lap and his right arm leaned up. The only difference in this image is the type of beer used and the outfit my dad is wearing, which if I was to do this in the future again I would amend this. The main viewpoint of this image is my father in the centre of the frame.

This photograph presents my father 18 years after the original archive was taken and presents how he has grown and changed since the archive was taken. It also represents things that are still similar about him from when he was younger. He was 26 years old in the first archive and he is now 44 years old today.

The reason I have chose to recreate this archive of my dad is because I am exploring my family through archives and my own photographs, so that I can explore the union that is my family. I am exploring archives, so that I can present how our family union has changed and grown and how we are all linked together through blood and DNA. I have chosen to use archives from years ago, so that I can present how even though the individuals have grown and changed the family union stays strong and unbroken.

Evaluation

I think this photoshoot went well, as I was able to successfully recreate old archive images of my family members and myself. I was also able to use some of the same clothes/ props used in the original images, such as my primary school dress and my uncles guitar. However, in some of these images I did not use the same clothing/ props as I was unable to as we didn’t own them anymore. Furthermore, in some images my subjects also were not in the correct colours etc, so if were to do this again I would focus more on the fine details of the images, such as the outfits which were worn in the original archive images, so that the photographs I take would like as identical as possible to the archive. I would also focus on which way to position my model, because in some of my images my dad is facing the opposite way to the archive images. I would also like to focus on adjusting my camera settings slightly, as one or two of my images were slightly out of focus. I would also like to focus on my lighting in the next photoshoot, so that I can improve it.

I also think I have presented how the individuals in my family have changed and grown, but how the family union stays united and unbroken even after all these years that have passed from when the original photographs were taken. I think the experience of actually taking these images have unified us even more as everyone came round to support my school work and be a part of it.

For my next photoshoot I would like to focus more on taking family shots with multiple people, rather than focusing on individuals. I would also like to possibly redo some of these photographs, so I can have the subject in more similar clothing and facing the correct direction, so that the photographs I take will be more identical to the archive photographs.

In this photoshoot, I focussed on recreating old archive images of my dad when he was younger. I also wanted to use my dad to recreate images of his dad (my grandad), who has passed away, because I could not use my grandad. My dad and my grandad also have lots of similar characteristics that I want to present as well, as they look very alike.

I also found archive images of myself at a similar age to my sister, so I recreated the images of myself, but with my sister. I did this, so that I could present the similarities my sister and I share due to our shared DNA.

Archive Images Used

Edits

I edited this image by increasing the contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the exposure, highlights and blacks. I did this, so that the image was slightly more vibrant and looked less dull and grey.

I edited this image by increasing the contrast, shadows, whites and vibrancy, while decreasing the exposure, highlights and blacks. I did this, so that the image was slightly more vibrant and had less of a grey wash.

Next, I cropped the photograph, deleting the negative space around my dad, so that the image was more similar to the archive image.

I edited this image by increasing the contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the exposure, highlights and blacks. I did this, so that the image would be slightly more vibrant and my dad would have some more colour in his face.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the highlights and blacks. I did this, so the image would be slightly more vibrant.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites and vibrancy, while decreasing the blacks. I did this, so that the lighting would be slightly more exposed and the colours slightly more vibrant.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites and vibrancy, while decreasing the blacks. I did this, so that the lighting would be slightly more exposed and the colours slightly more vibrant.

I edited this image by increasing the contrast, shadows and vibrancy, while decreasing the exposure, highlights, whites, blacks and saturation. I did this, so that the red top my dad is wearing would be slightly more vibrant and the lighting would be slightly less exposed.

I edited this image by increasing exposure, contrast, shadows, whites and vibrancy, while decreasing the highlights, blacks and saturation. I did this, so that the image is slightly warmer and less dull.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the highlights and blacks. I did this, so that the image would be slightly more vibrant.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the whites and blacks. I did this, so that the image would be slightly more exposed, with slightly more contrast between the black and white images and my dad’s red top.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the highlights and blacks. I did this, so that the image would be slightly more exposed and vibrant, with more contrast between the black and white images and the colour around it.

I edited this image by increasing the contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the exposure, highlights and blacks. I did this, so that I could attempt to improve the lighting.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the blacks. I did this, so that the image would have more exposure and better lighting, so it looked more similar to my archive image of my school photo.

I edited this image by increasing the contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the exposure, highlights and blacks. I did this, so that the image was slightly more exposed, so that the lighting was improved. I did this, so that it would look more similar to my school photo archive.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the highlights and blacks. I did this, so that the image was slightly more exposed, so that the lighting was improved. I did this, so that it would look more similar to my school photo archive.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the blacks. I did this, so that the image is slightly more exposed with better lighting.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the highlights and blacks. I did this, so that the lighting is better as it is slightly more exposed.

I edited this image by increasing the contrast, shadows, whites and vibrancy, while decreasing the exposure, highlights and blacks. I did this, so that the image lighting is improved, because the levels of light and shade are not what I intended for this image.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the highlights and blacks. I did this, so that the lighting in this image could be improved, because the levels of light and shade are not what I intended for this photograph.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites and vibrancy, while decreasing the highlights and blacks. I did this in order to improve the lighting, because the levels of light and shade from the sun are not what I intended.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the highlights and blacks. I did this in order to improve the lighting, because the levels of light and shade from the sun are not what I intended.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the highlights, whites and blacks. I did this, so that the wall would be more white, compared to grey and so the image would have better lighting.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the highlights and blacks. I did this, so that the background would be more white compared to grey.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the highlights and blacks. I did this, so that the background wall would be more white, compared to grey and so my mum would have more colour in her face.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the highlights and blacks. I did this, so that the image would be more exposed and therefore have better lighting.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the highlights and blacks. I did this, so that the image would be more exposed and therefore have better lighting.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the highlights and blacks. I did this, so that the image would have better lighting.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the highlights and blacks. I did this, so that the image would have better lighting. I also cropped the negative space out from the top of the frame, so it was more similar to the archive photograph.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites and vibrancy, while decreasing the highlights and blacks. I did this to try and correct the lighting coming from one side, rather than straight forward. I also selected the background and decreased the saturation, so that the background would be more white, compared to the orange colour it was before hand due to the warm lighting and the reflection of the orange top.

I edited this image by increasing contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the exposure, highlights and blacks. I did this to try and improve the lighting that was coming from one side, rather than straight forward. I also selected the background and decreased the saturation, so that the background would be more white, compared to the orange colour it was before hand due to the warm lighting and the reflection of the orange top.

I edited this image by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the highlights and blacks. I did this, so that the image would look less dull and be slightly more vibrant.

Then, I selected the background of the image and decreased the highlights and whites and increased the blacks, so that the light coming through the window was less bright.

For my first photoshoot I want to focus on recreating old archived images of my family. In order to do this, I have been through my family photo albums and have taken photographs of the images I want to use in my photoshoots and recreate. I have chosen images including:

• My dad when he was younger
• My mum when she was younger
• Myself when I was younger
• My sister when she was younger
• My two uncles when they were younger
• My grandparents/ great-grandparents/ great great-grandparents

Examples of Archives

Plan

My plan for this photoshoot is to have my mum and dad recreate younger images of themselves, so I can present how they have changed and what has stayed the same/ similar during this time.

I also want to have my dad recreate photographs of his dad when he was younger and more recent images of him before he passed. I want to do this so i can present their similarities in characteristics, so I can present how family and DNA unify us together by giving us all these similarities. I also want my mum and her two brothers to recreate an image of their mum for the same reason and so I can present the similarities between my mum and her siblings as well. I also want to recreate images of my great-grandparents and great grandparents for the same reason. I also would like to recreate images of my uncles from when they were younger, myself and my sister. I also would like to recreate images of myself when I was younger, but using my sister.

Family Archives

Contact sheet-

The images which are highlighted green and red are the images I have chosen to edit, because they have better quality than the other photographs. They also work better with what I am researching, which is union. The images which are highlighted red are the archives that I am going to be recreating. I have chosen these images, because I think they will be the best images to recreate to represent family and how time passes, but they are also images that I am able to recreate. Some of these images are harder to recreate, due to family members living in the UK and family members that have passed away.

Family Tree

About the Archives

These archives are images my mum and dad have collected over the years, including images of there family, who have passed, as well as themselves when they were younger. These photos also contain documents of my sisters and my life.

Some of these images are slightly lower quality due to when they were taken, or the physical images being slightly damaged over the years, but they are a good indicator of not only my past, but my families past as well.

About My Family

Dad- My dad was born in England in Burnley and his parents are Tom and Gwyneth. He also has a brother called Adam, who is 2 years older than him. His parents got divorced, so he rotated between who he lived with weekly. He lived in Burnley until he was 23 and moved to Jersey Channel Islands for a job. He is a bricklayer. He then met my mum that same year.

Mum- My mum was born in Jersey and her parents were Darren and Sarah. She has a rough childhood, so lived with her nan Roselyn. She had two younger brothers named Josh and Daniel. There dad was Paul, who lived in England, so they both lived there for a while, until they also moved in with Roselyn. My mum then met my dad when she was 18. My dad worked with her uncle Simon and that how they got introduced.

Me- After dating for three years, I was born in 2006. In 2013 my sister Emily was born. We have both lived with our mum and dad our whole lives.

My intention for this study is to explore my family, including my extended family, by using archives and at home films that we own. I am using archives similarly to Larry Sultan, so that I can present my family tree and how we are all unified together. I am also using archives, so that I can take inspiration from them and recreate some of the photographs. To recreate some of these photos, I am going to be taking photographs of my mum and my dad, similarly to Larry Sultan, but I am also going to be taking images of my sister, dog and maybe even myself. I am going to be taking staged photographs, as well as some documentary photographs, which is also what Larry Sultan did, so that I can show a range images during this project.

I also would like to explore my mum and dad’s marriage, so that I can present how their marriage has unified there two families and how they have extended the family tree, by bringing my sister and I into the world. I also want to explore my mum and dad’s lives before they were married, or met, so that I can present how the union of marriage can alter the people in the union and their extended family. In order to discover what their lives were like I am going to be asking them questions each and using archives to do so.

I would also like to experiment with collages throughout this project, so that I am able to blend together my photographs and the archive images that I am using. I am going to experiment with lots of different types of collages, including joiners, which I have taken inspiration from David Hockney and more ordinary collages similarly to Larry Sultan. In order to create the joiners, I am going to take multiple images of my chosen subject, but from multiple different angles and at slightly different times, so that I can then print them off and lay them out on the table in whatever unique layout I desire. While exploring with these joiners I am also going to explore the theme of time while doing so, because these joiners take a lot of time to do, which symbolises the time it takes to create a union and how they change over time. I am going to be using archives and my own photographs to present this when making my joiners, as the historical archives and current images can present how time has altered and created more unions.

I would also like to be more creative in this topic and take inspiration from Carolle Benitah. I want to display how our DNA and blood links us together, as we are all a part of each other and share similar characteristics. In order to do this, I want to explore my family tree and create a stitched image that links us all together, similarly to how Carolle Benitah has used stitching in her work. In order to do this, I am going to experiment with creating stitching on photoshop, as well as actually printing off my images and actually stitching them. I also want to create a collage of certain family members faces, so that I can present the huge similarities we all have.

Carolle Benitah

Carolle Benitah was born in 1965 in Casablanca, Morocco. She worked as a fashion designer for 10 years and she studied at the École de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne (promotion 1991) and she graduated from École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie in Arles, France, with the Jury’s distinction in 2015. In 2001 she turned to photography as well, due to wanting to change her career path and life due to challenging personal circumstances at that time in her life and a period of strong personal questioning.

She began taking photographs of her son, herself and her family, so she could document her every day life. Soon she was drawn in by the discovery and the process of her own questioning, so she enrolled herself in art school. During this year she became ill and documented this life experience.

She transformed her photographs into three-dimensional pieces. She used the decorative form of embroidery to present her milieu’s flaws. It is also a metaphor of itself to carolle benitah, because to embroider a photograph it will first make holes in the paper. It is a process. There is something sacrificed to work on a photograph. It’s a violent and painful treatment. ‘I drill, I cut, I erase, I crop and I’ll remove some elements.’ It is also a reflection of the time, the time it will take to embroider each photograph and also the time that has passed between the moment when the photograph was taken and now. It is her way of revisiting her own story with experience and time spent. ‘It’s like crossing the mirror. I go back and I recreate another story.’

During her work in photography she explored memory, family and the passage of time. Often pairing old family snapshots with handmade accents, such as embroidery, beading and ink drawings, Bénitah seeks to reinterpret her own history as daughter, wife, and mother. Her work questions the themes of identity and self construction, while exploring subjects such as family, desire, loss, mourning and confinement. She did this by taking on challenging themes and drew on difficulties from her own past. She also drew on her past as a fashion designer by using materials that populate the domestic world (placemats, monogrammed handkerchiefs, tea towels, wedding trousseau linens, etc.) and trivial objects which she creates and embroiders, she overturns the hierarchy of the arts.

During her work of Photo Souvinirs she began to explore other mediums. She began to embroider setences on paper doilies, phrases that question love and desire.

‘Tell me you love me, tell me once more that you love me, tell me one more time that you love me.’ – This reflects a kind of insecurity and urgency of desire. She continued to explore these obsessions by creating an installation of 11 handkerchiefs embroidered with monograms depicting impossible expectations, such as ‘Im waiting for Mike Brandt, my idol of 10 years old, to come back from the grave and tell me he wants to marry me.’ She embroidered these onto pillows, with an embroidered crown in the middle of the pillow and the phrases around the outside of the pillow.

The work of Carolle Bénitah has been published in magazines such as Leica World, Shots Magazine, Photos Nouvelles, Spot, Center for Photography Houston, Foto Noviny, and Lens Culture, among others. 

She then passed away April 1st 2024 due to a short illness at age 59 in Arrondissement, Marseille, France.

About Photo Souvenirs

In her work Photo Souvinirs she used old family archives, snap shots. She chose specific photographs cropped them and embroidered them. In doing so she explored her identity and reconstructed this, as well as exploring the themes of family and difficult experiences in her own life.

She titled her work ‘Photo Souvenirs,’ because it includes three periods: childhood, adolescence and adulthood and the collection of images ends in the early 2000’s when she started documenting her own life. Each period corresponds with a colour. She built an album for each period and in each album there are 15 images. Childhood is represented with red, which is the colour of violent emotions. Adolescences is represented by black, which is the colour of anxieties related to the period, and adulthood is represented with gold, which is the colour of fulfillness in love. She used the colour corresponding thread for her embroideries in each of these periods.

Her series Photos-Souvenirs  was also selected to exhibit in FotoFest’s 2014 Discoveries of the Meeting Place showcase of past Biennial portfolio reviews.

A short video about Carolle Benitah, made by another friend, Marie Docher.

Interview (2010)

I started to be interested in my family pictures when I was leafing through a family album and found myself overwhelmed by an emotion of which I could not define the origin.

These photographs were taken 40 years earlier, and I could not even remember the moments they were shot, nor what preceded or followed those moments.

But the photos reawakened an anguish of something both familiar and totally unknown, the kind of disquieting strangeness that Freud spoke about. Those moments, fixed on paper, represented me, spoke about me and my family, told things about my identity, my place in the world, my family history and its secrets, the fears that constructed me, and many other things that contributed to who I am today.

I decided to explore the memories of my childhood to help me understand who I am and to define my current identity.

To begin, I carry out “excavations”. Like an archeologist, I dig out the pictures in which I appear from family albums and the shoe boxes full of photographs. I choose snapshots because they are related to memories and to loss.

These photographs are fragments of my past. I interpret them from a subjective perspective as confessions. I order them, classify them, scan them, then I print them. I don’t do anything directly on the original photo; I transpose this reality on a different paper. Sometimes I crop a detail that calls out to me, and I choose my format. The work of interpretation begins with these steps.

Once these choices of images are made, I start to tell my version of the story. I turn my attention to my own history, sometimes with 40 years of distance and the life experiences that changed my perception of events. The past of a human being, unlike the remains of an antique temple, is neither permanent nor finished, but reconstructed in the present time.

For the next step, I add needlework: embroidery and beads.

Embroidering is primarily a feminine activity. In the past, the embroiderer was seen as a paragon of virtue. Waiting was tied to this activity: women embroidered, hoping for the return of the man to the home. Embroidery is intimately linked to the milieu in which I grew up. Girls in a “good family” used to learn how to sew and embroider — essential activities for “perfect women”. My mother embroidered her trousseau.

There is nothing subversive about this activity, but I pervert it with my purpose.
I use its decorative function to re-interpret my own history and to expose its failings.
The two activities — interpretation and needlework — come together again in a kind of dispute: embroidery is the sign of a good education yet the words that I speak don’t show me to be what I was supposed to be: a well behaved girl, a wise spouse and a loving mother.

With each stitch I make a hole with a needle. Each hole is a putting to death of my demons. It’s like an exorcism. I make holes in paper until I am not hurting any more.

—Carolle Benitah

Her Work

Analysis of 1 Image

This image is an archive image, which looks to be taken outside on a beach. Therefore, it would use natural daylight as the lighting source. The subjects in the image are posed how they wish, so they have high levels of control and the person taking the photograph also has high levels of control, because they can manipulate the distance of themselves, as well as angles and positioning.

This image is a black and white image with high levels of contrast, due to the light and dark tones throughout. This image also contains the colour red, due to embroidered stitching in the photograph. This creates a three dimensional image, with texture. There is also more texture, due to the two figures, which are cut out and then stuck at the bottom of the page. The arrangement of this archive image was manipulated, due to the deconstruction of the image. Carolle Benitah manipulated this layout, as she arranged the cut out figures and stitching as she wished, which indicates high levels of control. She has also manipulated the cut out figures, so they are stuck outside the frame of the original image. I think the main viewpoint of this image is the red stitched figure, who I believe to be Carolle Benitah. This is the main viewpoint, because the pop of colour leads the eye to this figure. The pop of colour also creates a contrast between the black and white background. All the figures are in the centre of the frame.

The red stitching in this image reflects violent emotions during Carolle Benitah’s childhood, as this archive is also an image from her childhood. The meaning of this image is to explore Carolle Benitah’s childhood and see how her experiences and life has changed over time. She also explores family and identity in these images in her work of ‘Photo Souvenirs.’

My Inspiration

I am taking inspiration from Carolle Benitah’s work, because I am also using family archives in my work, and I will also be deconstructing them in the same way benitah has. I want to experiment with stitching as well, but in a slightly different way. I want to use stitching to show how my family and I are all connected through blood, DNA, love and similar characteristics. I will also be using red stitching, but instead of it representing violent emotions, like it does in benitah’s work, it will symbolise blood, so it can metaphor my family’s blood line.

I also want to experiment with the concept of time and how families can change and grow over time. Benitah also experienced how her life has changed from when her archives were taken to her current life, while making this work and the embroidery metaphors this, because of the time it takes to embroider a photograph. I want to use this same metaphor in my work.

In order to create these embroidered photographs, I will use photoshop, but I may experiment with actually stitching a hard copy of an image, so I can understand Carolle Benitah work better and the time it takes to do so.

1. Research a photo-book and describe the story it is communicating  with reference to subject-matter, genre and approach to image-making.

2. Who is the photographer? Why did he/she make it? (intentions/ reasons) Who is it for? (audience) How was it received? (any press, reviews, awards, legacy etc.)

3. Deconstruct the narrative, concept and design of the book and apply theory above when considering:

• Book in hand: how does it feel? Smell, sniff the paper.
• Paper and ink: use of different paper/ textures/ colour or B&W or both.
• Format, size and orientation: portraiture/ landscape/ square/ A5, A4, A3 / number of pages.
• Binding, soft/hard cover. image wrap/dust jacket. saddle stitch/swiss binding/ Japanese stab-binding/ leperello
• Cover: linen/ card. graphic/ printed image. embossed/ debossed. letterpress/ silkscreen/hot-stamping.
• Title: literal or poetic / relevant or intriguing.
• Narrative: what is the story/ subject-matter. How is it told?
• Structure and architecture: how design/ repeating motifs/ or specific features develops a concept or construct a narrative.
• Design and layout: image size on pages/ single page, double-spread/ images/ grid, fold- outs/ inserts.
• Editing and sequencing: selection of images/ juxtaposition of photographs/ editing process.
• Images and text: are they linked? Introduction/ essay/ statement by artists or others.  Use of captions (if any.)

Larry Sultan- Pictures From Home

1. Research into the photobook

Pictures from Home was first published in 1992 and was a collection of photographs taken of Sultan’s parents in the San Fernando Valley from 1982 to 1992, whose role was to question societal expectations of gender and ageing. Sultan returned home to Southern California, which is where he grew up in his childhood home in the 1980’s and began his work. His home became a source of inspiration for a number of his projects. In ‘Pictures from Home’ he combines contemporary photographs with film stills from home movies, fragments of conversation, Sultan’s own writings and other memorabilia. This results in a narrative that collages both documentary and staged images causing the boundary between them to thin and create  images of the psychological as well as physical landscape of suburban family life. Simultaneously, the distance usually maintained between the photographer and his subjects also slips in an exchange of dialogue and emotion that is unique to this work.

“What drives me to continue this work is difficult to name. It has more to do with love than with sociology. With being a subject in the drama rather than a witness. And in the odd and jumbled process of working, everything shifts: the boundaries blur, my distance slips, the arrogance and illusion of immunity falters. I wake up in the middle of the night, stunned and anguished. These are my parents. From that simple fact, everything follows.” – Larry Sultan

His photobook displays the flow of ordinary life and Sultan noted that he wanted the images in Pictures from Home to “become part of a larger narrative…to slam up against other images (an afterimage). I want to measure how a life was lived against how a life was dreamed.”

2. Who is the photographer?

Larry Sultan was born 13th July 1946 in Brooklyn New York to a Jewish family. He grew up in the San Fernando Valley, part of Los Angeles, California, where his parents moved when he was an infant. He graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a bachelor’s degree in political science, and received a master’s degree in fine arts from the San Francisco Art Institute in San Francisco.

He was an American photographer and started his career in the 1970’s.  In 1977, he published a collection of photographs he found in corporate and government archives called ‘Evidence’ with a photographer called Mike Mandel, which the New York Times characterised as “a watershed in the history of art photography.” The two men also created billboards aimed at slowing down road traffic. He then published ‘Pictures from Home’ from 1982-1992, followed by his 2004 assignment for Maxim, which consisted of photographs of middle-class residences rented by the porn industry in the San Fernando Valley, which led to another photographic series called ‘The Valley.’ He also photographed Paris Hilton for Interview in his parents’ bedroom in his childhood home.

Sultan was an instructor of  photography at his alma mater, the San Francisco Art Institute, from 1978 to 1988. He then taught at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco as Chair of the Photography Department from 1993 to 1999, and as distinguished professor of art from 1989 to 2009.

He served on the board of trustees of the Headlands Centre for the Arts from 1992 to 1998. At the time of his death, 13th December 2009, he was the artist trustee at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, a position he had taken up in the same year. He died of cancer and died at his home in Greenbrae, California, with his wife Katherine Sultan, also known as Kelly Sultan.

3. Deconstruct the narrative, concept and design of the book and apply theory above when considering:

Layout of Pictures From Home:

Design of Pictures From Home:

192 pages

9.29 x 1.18 x 10.87 inches

Language: English

Title: Pictures From Home- This title is a literal title, because the setting for all of these photographs was Sultan’s childhood home. However, the title can be quite intriguing, because you have no way of telling the type of pictures in this photobook until you open it, as it may have been a lower class, or upper class home. In Sultan’s case, his family were upper middle-class.

The cover of this book is a textured, dark green hard cover, with one of Sultan’s photographs stuck onto the front cover. This image is placed in the top two thirds of the cover with the green background framing the image. The title is then written below in bold red writing, with his name underneath in the same font and colour.

The inside of the cover is the same red that his title was written in and there is another piece of red card before the photographs begin.

His book starts with snapshots of his family films of Sultan when he was younger. The snapshots are of him playing with a red hula hoop in his family garden. The type of paper used in his book for the pages that the snapshots of his family films is different to the glossy white paper used for the pages with his own photographs. The paper used for these pages is not as thick and is matte, similarly to ordinary A4 paper. His images on these pages are also full sized, compared to the other pages, which are positioned in different areas of the page, with the white background framing them. The layout of this book is very unstructured, so the layout of these photographs differ throughout, but never being a full page spread, unless they are snapshots of the film stills. There is a white glossy page after the first set of film snapshots and before Sultan’s own photographs, which has the title of his book and his name slightly above the centre of the page in black bold writing, in the same font as the title on the front cover.

Sultan also includes text throughout this book, that either him, or his parents have written. The text includes the story of his childhood growing up in that family home, as well as other memories of his family from his childhood. He also includes quotes from himself, his mother and his father in this text.

Sultan also includes collages in this book, which include archived photographs, or snapshots from his film stills, which are either paired with text, or laid out on a double page spread.

Sultan uses a range of coloured images, mainly the images he has taken and snapshots of his family films, but he also includes even older archived images that are in black and white, like images of his dad when he was a young boy.

At the end of his own photographs in his book, he has a white glossy page, before including more snapshots of his family films to end his book. On the last snapshot he also dedicates the book to his parents as, it states, ‘For my parents Irving and Jean.’ He then has an acknowledgements page and ends his book with the same red card.

The back cover of his book is the same textured dark green hard cover. It has a polaroid photograph that is an archive in the top half of the cover, with the green framing around it. The polaroid is a picture of his mother stood in front of their childhood home. The polaroid has ‘Sultan’s home’ written at the top of it and ‘Summer 1962’ at the bottom of the image, written in a blue biro pen. The image is also stuck onto the green cover, similarly to the front cover.

Narrative of Pictures From Home:

The narrative of this photo book is the narrative of Sultan’s life with his family growing up in his childhood home, as well as his life now as he takes staged and documentary images of his parents. He has used archives and his own photographs to portray his family now and his childhood. He has also used text to present the narrative of his childhood up to his current life when he was working on this book. He also includes the narrative of what each of his parents were like and how they treated him throughout his life. He portrayed his parents narrative using images, as well as text, which was wrote by his parents and himself. Using text from his parents allows his to present his parents narrative from their point of view, presenting their thoughts and opinions.

The concept he is trying to convey to the viewer:

He is trying to convey the narrative of his childhood up to his current life to the viewers and what his family was like during his childhood and his current life. He also wants to convey the relationships he had with his mother and father during his childhood and his relationship with them in his current life and how it has altered.

My Inspiration

I am taking inspiration from Sultan’s photo book, because I am also taking my own photographs of my family, as well as using archive images of my family and childhood. I am also going to use family films I have, similarly to Sultan and I am going to borrow ideas from the layout of his photo book. I am going to use a range of different paper for my photo book for my film snapshots and archived images. I am also going to use collages in my photo book, as well as using joiners, which I have taken inspiration from David Hockney. I am also going to use a hard cover for my book.

Larry Sultan

Larry Sultan was born 13th July 1946 in Brooklyn New York to a Jewish family. He grew up in the San Fernando Valley, part of Los Angeles, California, where his parents moved when he was an infant. He graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a bachelor’s degree in political science, and received a master’s degree in fine arts from the San Francisco Art Institute in San Francisco.

He was an American photographer and started his career in the 1970’s.  In 1977, he published a collection of photographs he found in corporate and government archives called ‘Evidence’ with a photographer called Mike Mandel, which the New York Times characterised as “a watershed in the history of art photography.” The two men also created billboards aimed at slowing down road traffic. He then published ‘Pictures from Home’ from 1982-1992, followed by his 2004 assignment for Maxim, which consisted of photographs of middle-class residences rented by the porn industry in the San Fernando Valley, which led to another photographic series called ‘The Valley.’ He also photographed Paris Hilton for Interview in his parents’ bedroom in his childhood home.

Sultan was an instructor of  photography at his alma mater, the San Francisco Art Institute, from 1978 to 1988. He then taught at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco as Chair of the Photography Department from 1993 to 1999, and as distinguished professor of art from 1989 to 2009.

He served on the board of trustees of the Headlands Centre for the Arts from 1992 to 1998. At the time of his death, 13th December 2009, he was the artist trustee at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, a position he had taken up in the same year. He died of cancer and died at his home in Greenbrae, California, with his wife Katherine Sultan, also known as Kelly Sultan.

Pictures From Home

Pictures from Home was first published in 1992 and was a collection of photographs taken of his parents in the San Fernando Valley from 1982 to 1992, whose role was to question societal expectations of gender and aging. Sultan returned home to Southern California, which is where he grew up in his childhood home in the 1980’s and began his work. His home became a source of inspiration for a number of his projects. In ‘Pictures from Home’ he combines contemporary photographs with film stills from home movies, fragments of conversation, Sultan’s own writings and other memorabilia. This results in a narrative that collages both documentary and staged images causing the boundary between them to thin and create  images of the psychological as well as physical landscape of suburban family life. Simultaneously, the distance usually maintained between the photographer and his subjects also slips in an exchange of dialogue and emotion that is unique to this work.

“What drives me to continue this work is difficult to name. It has more to do with love than with sociology. With being a subject in the drama rather than a witness. And in the odd and jumbled process of working, everything shifts: the boundaries blur, my distance slips, the arrogance and illusion of immunity falters. I wake up in the middle of the night, stunned and anguished. These are my parents. From that simple fact, everything follows.” – Larry Sultan

His photobook displays the flow of ordinary life and Sultan noted that he wanted the images in Pictures from Home to “become part of a larger narrative…to slam up against other images (an afterimage). I want to measure how a life was lived against how a life was dreamed.”

Article on His Work

Review in the Guardian Newspaper-

‘Pictures from home by Larry Sultan review- When mom and dad lived in the dream‘

‘Sultan’s 80s portraits of his parents are both artful and authentic‘

Larry’s work published in 1992 ‘Pictures from home’ is an intriguing visual memoir that also explores all American families, both as reality and a construct. Sultan began the project when Ronald Reagan was president and “the institution of the family was being used as an inspirational symbol by resurgent conservatives. I wanted to puncture this mythology of the family and to show what happens when we are driven by images of success. And I was willing to use my family to prove a point.”

Although this was the original motive, his book is much too personal and self-questioning to be anything other than a tortured labour of love, as it allowed him to see his parents and himself in a new way. Sultan used family snapshots and stills from home movies alongside his own photographs of his parents, who were retired in a desert community near Palm Springs. Their expansive house and gardens are the setting for Sultan’s portraits, which, whether intimate or cinematic, are always artfully choreographed, as if reminding us that we are looking at a highly constructed narrative.

Pictures from Home also included the merging of images and text, including painful reflections of Sultan’s upbringing, his parents, his photography, and the wisdom of this project, which are undercut with his father’s more macho, matter-of-fact monologues. The tension between the two is the classic generational tension between father and son; the one seeking affirmation of his work, the other baffled by it. “Every few months I visit, loaded down with camera gear and ideas for pictures,” writes Sultan. “It takes a day or two for most of these ideas to seem strained or foolish and then I’m left with cases of unexposed film and a feeling of desperation.”

Pictures from home also displays the particular tensions of photography: the tricky balancing act between critical distance and emotional engagement, between empathy and voyeurism.

Sultan describes sneaking into his mother’s bedroom and photographing her as she lay sleeping – “I was so apprehensive of waking her that I breathed in rhythm with her.” He photographs the underside of her foot, which he realises he has never seen before. In his furtive excitement, he wishes he could “photograph it again and again.” It is a strange, heightened interlude, made more so by the realisation that she was not really asleep – “We were co-conspirators. Just as I was secretly photographing, she was secretly awake. She felt me looking.”

Ultimately, as Sultan acknowledged, Pictures from Home is an impossible project. “I realise that beyond the rolls of film and the few good pictures,” he writes, “the demands of my project and my confusion about its meaning, is the wish to take photography literally. To stop time. I want my parents to live for ever.” In a way, he succeeded.

Interview on His Work

‘In 1983 the republicans had hijacked the family and they turned it into a ideological tool and the family values that they were talking about I found them quite oppressive and I felt that family is one of the most complicated, unnerving institutions and it’s the last institution that I think anyone believes in, most of us believe in

Larry sultan found that in 1983 the Republicans has hijacked the family and turned it into an ideological tool. He found that the family values that they were talking about were quite oppressive and he felt that family is one of the most complicated, unnerving institutions and it’s the last institution that anyone believes in, as most people didn’t believe in the government, churches, or in the bank, but family still has a pull on people.

Sultan’s family life was complicated, as his father was a very strong character. He was an orphan that came up out of the lower class and worked his way up to being a vice president at Real Horatia Alger Story. His father did not like that sultan was an artist and gave him a hard time about it, calling him a ‘loser.’ His father lost his job in his early fifties, because the company was sold and he never worked again.

Sultan states, ‘the wound is deeply in the family.’ This led to him beginning to study these at home movies, looking for himself and the evidence of his life. This made him realise that he could reshape them, ‘like a good dream,’ as he could reinsert himself into family life. Looking at the documents of his families at home movies he found they also have a sense that a families projected its dreams onto film emotion, as they celebrate the family in the most mystical, remarkable ways.

This led to him beginning to use the movie stills, their pictures, snapshots and he began to take his own photographs. His photographs were a blend of staged and documentary work, as he was trying to collapse those differences.

Sultan states that, ‘the truth is about performance, how we perform, how we project and the truth can be staged and it can be found. I don’t think there is such a division between the two.’

The images were intimate images, private images, which he then made public. He felt that there was a kind of betrayal that happens when this is done, as something is torn when you go from private to public. A trust. Sultan felt terrible about this throughout the project, as he felt like he had a secret and that he was betraying his parents. To get around this issue he had his parents in a sense be collaborators, as they wrote, discussed the pictures and they dismantled his position. He was under question just as much as the home movies were. The home movies were all fictive and partially true.

This project allowed Sultan to solve a lot of personal issues with his family. His parents came to one of his art openings at MCA in San Diego and there were people asking for his fathers autograph, where his father said, ‘I don’t know whether i’m making you famous, or your making me famous.’ This caused Sultan and his father to be bound together in a very odd enterprise.

His Work

Analysis of 2 Photographs

The type of lighting used in this image is natural lighting, which is coming in through the window on the right, where the curtains are. This image is a staged image, so has high levels of control, because he could manipulate the setting, distance and position of the subjects (his parents) and himself with the camera.

There are neutral colours throughout this image, including the cream/ white trousers, furniture, curtains etc. as well as having that contrast with including more vibrant colours, such as the bright green walls, the yellow flowers and the slightly pink shirt the women is wearing and the patterned black and orange shirt the man is wearing. This image includes lots of lighter tones, due to the neutral colours, but also includes a few darker tones including the belt on the women, the shirt on the man and the tv. There is a bit of texture in this image, due to the objects used in the photograph (the furniture) and the outfits that are being worn (the silk shirt). The way they are positioned creates space and dimension in this image, as the women in stood in the background, while the man is in the foreground. The main viewpoint of this image however, is the women, even though she is in the background.

This image was taken in the photographers childhood home and the subjects are his parents. This image is a staged image and it is trying to present the everyday flow of an ordinary life, while also questioning societal expectations of gender and ageing. This image presents an ordinary flow of life, as the activity presented in this image is watching TV, which is an ordinary activity that almost everyone does. However, this image also presents gender roles, as in the image the male is able to sit down and relax and watch TV, while the female is stood by his side waiting by the looks of it. This may present that the male is more important than the women, which is why he is sat and that the women is waiting to serve him.

The type of lighting used in this image is natural lighting coming in from the windows. There are high levels of control in this image, as it is a staged image, where the position and distance of Sultan’s father and himself with the camera was manipulated.

There are lots of neutral colours in this image, including the warm/ cream bedding and the brown walls. However, there are also some brighter colours including the green carpet and the dark navy suit his father is wearing. There are lots of light tones in this image, which creates a contrast between the darker tones of the subjects suit. There are also a lot of textures in this image, including the textures seen of the carpet, as well as the textures of the bedding. There are also lots of patterns in this image, including the shapes on the bedding and the shapes on the wall paper.

The composition of this image is a simple one, with the subject in the centre of the frame being the main viewpoint.

This photograph was taken in the photographers childhood home and the subject is his father, who he had a very complicated relationship with, because he did not want him to be an artists. However, this photo allowed them to grow closer together and allowed Sultan to discover that his father has more similarities to him than he recognised. His father states, ‘that’s you sitting on the bed, that this is a self-portrait. I know who I am, you know who you are, your values are part of this work, but let’s just make it very explicit. That’s you sitting on the bed.’ This allowed Sultan to recognise that his father was very clear headed and astute about photographic issues.

My Inspiration

I am going to take inspiration from Larry Sultan, because I am also going to take staged images of my parents in the same way he has done in my current home, which I have grown up in, just how he has taken photographs in his childhood home. However, I am not only going to take pictures of my parents, but other family members as well, like my sister for example. I am also going to include archive images, including photographs and films, just how Sultan has, in my photobook, as I am going to also be recreating some of these archives. I am also going to include some of the features he has used in his photobook, like using different paper for certain pages, because I think it works very well and completes the book.

I am also going to experiment with joiners, which I have taken inspiration from David Hockney, but I am also going to create different types of collages, just how Sultan has in his photo book. I may also try and recreate some of Sultan’s photographs, like the one of his father sat on his bed in a suit.

David Hockney

David Hockney was born 9th July 1937 and is an English painter and photographer. He is an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960’s and he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th and 21st century. David Hockney was born in Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, the fourth of five children of Kenneth Hockney and Laura nee Thompson. He was educated at Wellington Primary School, Bradford Grammar School and Bradford College of Art.

At the Royal College of Art, Hockney featured, alongside Peter Blake in the exhibition New Contemporaries, which announced the arrival of British Pop art. He was associated with the movement, but his early works display expressionist elements as well.

When the RCA said it would not let him graduate if he did not complete an assignment of a life drawing of a live model in 1962, Hockney painted Life Painting for a Diploma in protest. He had refused to write an essay required for the final examination and said that he should be assessed solely on his artworks. His talent was recognised and he began growing his reputation. The RCA then changed its regulations and awarded him a diploma. After leaving the RCA, he taught at Maidstone College of Art, University of Iowa in 1964, University of Colorado, Boulder in 1965, University of California, Los Angeles from 1966 to 1967 and then at the University of California, Berkeley in 1967.

In 1946 he moved to LA where he was inspired to make a series of paintings of swimming pools in an acrylic medium using vibrant colours. He also captured the local surroundings of his hometown Yorkshire by painting the countryside in both oils and watercolours. Hockney has experimented with painting, drawing, printmaking, watercolours, photography, and many other media including a fax machine, paper pulp, computer applications and iPad drawing programs. The subject matter of interest ranges from still lifes to landscapes, portraits of friends, his dogs, and stage designs for the Royal Court Theatre, Glyndebourne, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

From 1999 to 2001 Hockney used a camera lucida for his research into art history as well as his own work in the studio. He created over 200 drawings of friends, family, and himself using this antique lens-based device.

Hockney explored printmaking and in 1976–77 Hockney created The Blue Guitar, a suite of 20 etchings, each utilising Crommelynck’s techniques and filled with references to Picasso. The frontispiece to the suite mentions Hockney’s dual inspiration; “The Blue Guitar: Etchings By David Hockney Who Was Inspired By Wallace Stevens Who Was Inspired By Pablo Picasso”. The etchings refer to themes in a poem by Wallace Stevens, The Man with the Blue Guitar. 

Joiners

Hockney began to produce photo collages in the early 1980’s, which in his early explorations within his personal photo albums, he referred to as ‘joiners.’ He first used Polaroid prints and subsequently 35mm, commercially processed colour prints. Using Polaroid snaps or photolab-prints of a single subject, Hockney arranged a patchwork to make a composite image, which presented different perspectives and angles, similarly to cubism, because the photographs were taken at slightly different perspectives and at different times. One of Hockney’s major aims was discussing the way human vision works, which he explored through cubism. Some pieces are landscapes, such as Pearblossom Highway #2, others portraits including Kasmin 1982; and My Mother, Bolton Abbey, 1982.

The creation of the ‘joiners’ occurred accidentally, when he noticed in the late 1960’s that photographers were using cameras with wide-angle lenses. He did not like these photographs because they looked somewhat distorted. While working on a painting of a living room and terrace in Los Angeles, he took Polaroid shots of the living room and glued them together, not intending for them to be a composition on their own. On looking at the final composition, he realised it created a narrative, as if the viewer moved through the room. He began to work more with photography after this discovery, stopping painting for a while to pursue this new technique exclusively.

However over time, he discovered what he could not capture with a lens, saying: “Photography seems to be rather good at portraiture, or can be. But, it can’t tell you about space, which is the essence of landscape. For me anyway. Even Ansel Adams can’t quite prepare you for what Yosemite looks like when you go through that tunnel and you come out the other side.” Frustrated with the limitations of photography and its ‘one-eyed’ approach, he returned to painting.

His Work

Joiners-

Paintings-

Analysis of 1 Photograph and 1 Painting

This collage consists of multiple Polaroid images all taken at slightly different angles and at slightly different times and they are then pieced together in an abstract way, similar to cubism (joiners). The Polaroids in this image use natural lighting coming in from the outdoors through the door in the background. There are also high levels of control in these photographs, as Hockney has manipulated the angle and timing of which he has taken the photos. He also has high levels of control when piecing together the Polaroids, so he could create a unique arrangement each time. Each Polaroid presents contrast between the one arranged next to it, as they display a slightly different setting/object at a slightly different angle/ perspective.

There are a range of different colours in this ‘joiner,’ including the blue background, the green and brown in the background of the outdoors Polaroid, white, red, yellow, blue and pink, in all different shades and tones. There are also lots of light and dark tones throughout this image due to the natural sunlight shining through the backdoor, compared to the more shaded indoor Polaroids. Some different textures can also be seen through the images, due to the texture of the outdoors and the objects, such as the blanket indoors.

There are lots of different Polaroids, which are all square shape, which are pieced together to create a new unique form each time they are arranged and rearranged, which presents a range of different perspectives and angles in doing so. The main viewpoint in the image is the old lady sat on the chair in the centre and foreground of the frame. The overlapping of images also creates a slight depth of surface illusion.

This ‘joiner’ relates the the Art Movement Cubism, as it presents a range of different angles and perspectives in an abstract way. Hockney also used a range of bright colours, which is also common in Synthetic Cubism.

The idea behind this image is also a lot deeper, as the process of taking multiple different images all at different times and different angles and printing them out and then having to arrange them in an aesthetic and unique way takes a lot of time, which I think is symbolised through the old women in the picture, as he often takes images of older people when creating his joiners.

This image contains a range of bright vibrant colours, such as blues, greens, yellows, reds, blacks, whites, oranges, purples and greys in all different shades. This painting is also very abstract, as it displays a range of different angles and perspectives, similarly to cubism, and because of all the bright colours used in this painting it relates to Synthetic Cubism the most. There is also a range of light and dark shades, as well as different warm and cool tones. Hockney has done this to create a depth of surface illusion in the painting, so different angles and perspectives can be viewed.

Hockney also presented a range of different shapes throughout these paintings in order to create a unique form with a range of angles and perspectives, as well as using different textures to do so. To create these different textures he used a range of different brush strokes and artistic techniques. The layout of these shapes and textures creates a depth of surface illusion that leads the viewpoint from the bottom of the canvas to the top of the canvas.

My Inspiration

For my photoshoots I am going to experiment with the ‘joiners,’ by taking multiple photographs at slightly different angles at slightly different times and I am going to print them up, so I can assemble them in a unique form, just how Hockney did.

I am also going to experiment with the notion of time, just how he has in his work, but I am going to do it in a slightly different way, as instead of using elderly people I am going to show the process time has on my family members. For example, I am going to use archive images of my family members and create ‘joiners’ with photographs I take of them now. However, Hockney also took pictures of people he loves, as he wanted to capture his relationships with the people he loved, including men he loved and spent time with and his parents, so I am also going to do the same as I am going to take pictures of my family members (the people I love).